ide was a window closed by a sagging oaken shutter, which
Dick threw open. The open door and window established a draught,
and as the clean sweet air blew through the cabin the odor of the
cat began to disappear.

Dick examined everything with the greatest interest and
curiosity. There was a floor of puncheons fairly smooth, a stone
fireplace, a chimney of mud and sticks, dusty wooden hooks, and
rests nailed into the wall, a rude table overturned in a corner,
and something that looked like a trap. It was the last that told
the tale to Dick. When he examined it more critically, he had no
doubt that it was a beaver trap.

Nor did he have any doubt but that this hut had been built by
beaver trappers long ago, either by independent hunters, or by
those belonging to one of the great fur companies. The beaver,
he believed, had been found on this very brook, and when they
were all taken the trappers had gone away, leaving the cabin
forever, as they had left many another one. It might be at least
forty years old.

Dick laughed aloud in his pleasure at this good luck. The cabin
was dusty, dirty, disreputable, and odorous, but that draught
would take away all the odors and his stout arm could soon repair
the holes in the roof, put the door back on its hinges, and
straighten the sagging window shutter. Here was their home, a
house built by white men as a home, and now about to be used as
such again. Dick did not feel like a tenant moving in, but like
an owner. It would be a long, hard task to bring their supplies
over the range but Albert and he had all the time in the world.
It was one of the effects of their isolation to make Dick feel
that there was no such thing as time.

He took another survey of the cabin. It was really a splendid
place, a palace in its contrast with the surrounding wilderness,
and he laughed with pure delight. When it was swept and cleaned,
and a fire blazing on the flat stone that served for a hearth,
while the cold winds roared without, it would be the snuggest
home west of the Missouri. He was so pleased that he undertook
at once some primary steps in the process of purification. He
cut a number of small, straight boughs, tied them together with a
piece of bark, the leaves at the head thus forming a kind of
broom, and went to work.

He raised a great dust, which the draught blew into his eyes,
ears, and nose, and he retreated from the place, willing to let
the wind take it away. H